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The EU reaches parts others would not dream of!

The EU press release about their so called Euromyths has resurfaced again this time in the Philadelphia Inquirer same old story, same old lies, same old answers.

Don’t these people ever move on? Or do they believe the more they repeat the more of us will be convinced that Eusceptics are liars.

FT.com / World / Europe - Surprise at strength of UK’s ties to eurozone: “Surprise at strength of UK’s ties to eurozone
By Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt
Published: January 22 2005 02:00 | Last updated: January 22 2005 02:00

The European Central Bank yesterday admitted to being ’surprised’ by the strength of the UK’s economic links with the 12-country strong eurozone, as revealed in trade and investment statistics that it had compiled for the first time.

In evidence likely to be seized on by supporters of British membership of the eurozone, the ECB produced figures showing that the UK dominated foreign direct investment into the eurozone. The UK was also the largest export market for eurozone goods, while British tourists visiting the eurozone largely explained the surplus in the bloc’s service sector part of its balance of payment statistics.”

Thanks to Martin Stabe for the link

Citizenship
Telegraph Letters

Sir – The proposal for citizenship ceremonies absolutely beats all, coming from a government that has shattered the constitution, is in effect run by Tony Blair’s private army of unelected “advisers” and is doing its level best to elbow out the Crown, our last line of defence against unscrupulous politicos.

Roger Pierce, Chinnor, Oxon

Sir – Why should I take an oath of citizenship? For most of 400 years, my family worked as blacksmiths in villages around Canterbury, where I was born and brought up.

I am proud of my heritage. In the Royal Tank Regiment, I was taught from the first day the history and ethos of the regiment: that it was a proud regiment whose members had served the country well in the past and our legacy should be not to tarnish its reputation for future members.

As a tour operator, I once took a group of Americans around Canterbury. Afterwards, one said: “I never understood England before. As you take us round, you talk about things that happened hundreds of years ago as though it is part of an ongoing story. I can see now that, to you English, your roots are so deep that you see yourselves as just ‘passing on the baton’ to the next generation.”

Alan Burton, Ipswich, Suffolk

At the heart of Europe By Daniel Hannan
Bloody cheek - they’ve only been here two minutes

Daniel Hannan Conservative MEP for the South-East Region and arch Tory Eusceptic writes today in the Telegraph in his usual spot “At the heart of Europe” This week Hannan is defending the British rebate “In a random survey of 30 foreign MEPs, I was able to find only one, a Portuguese, who did not want to scrap the deal struck by Margaret Thatcher 20 years ago.” Apparently neither was Peter Mandelson prepared to stand up for the rebate he “ostentatiously refused to stick up for the rebate” says the MEP.

Hannan offers a reasonable if incomplete defence of the rebate “Only once in 32 years of membership has Britain got back more than it paid in. During almost all of that time, despite languishing near the bottom of the wealth table, we were the second largest net contributor after Germany.” “We suffer on two counts. First, we are a food importer with an efficient agricultural sector, which means that we pay more into the CAP and take less out. Second, we conduct an unusually high proportion of our trade with other continents, and so are especially badly hit by the EU’s external tariffs. The rebate does not give us “our money back”; it simply reduces the amount we hand over.”

I would suggest that to argue we are badly hit buy the EU’s external tariffs would undermine any argument to leave the EU which denies the eternal tariff would be a big factor that should prevent us leaving because these are now well within manageable limits.

“It is true that £12 billion is the gross figure. About £8 billion of EU money is spent in Britain. But much of this is allocated to schemes whose chief purpose is to advertise the EU”.
He could have gone on to explain that we also have to meet these payments with an equal amount of our own money and that the way these payments are made undermines the Westminster government.

A then rather curious but interesting argument that I have not come across before, “In any case, nowhere else in public life do we look at the net rather than the gross figure. No one, for example, would argue that income tax, rather than being 22p in the pound, is in fact zero, because the whole sum is “given back” in roads, schools and hospitals”

However this is not my main concern with the article it is the way it is framed that annoys me, it is a weak argument that has no basis in fact and leaves Euscpetics open to accusations of at least unreasonableness, if not downright little Englander tactics, that I for one would find very hard to defend.

Hannan Starts with a tirade against Lithuania through attacking the EU Budget Commissioner, Dalia Grybauskaite who happens to be Lithuanian, yet he then goes on to say that the British Commissioner does not support the rebate either, which immediately undermines his argument.

It is the ingratitude that rankles. For years, we refused to recognise the Soviet occupation of Lithuania. We held on to their gold reserves until there was an independent government to take them back. We were one of the first countries to support their application to join the EU. And what do they do the moment they are in? The very first act of the Lithuanian Budget Commissioner, Dalia Grybauskaite, is to demand that Britain give up its budget rebate.

It is not Lithuania that is demanding the end of the rebate it is the EU itself, Dalia Grybauskaite based her argument not on the need of Lithuania but on the need of the EU for a bigger slice of the cake, they want it to proceed with their spending plans. The fact is it matters not which country a commissioner comes from they do not speak or act for their country supposedly, they do in fact swear allegiance to the EU alone, so if Peter Mandelson were to swap jobs with Dalia Grybauskaite he would be saying the same things.

What makes it especially galling is that we backed enlargement in the first place because we thought it would mean a smaller role for Brussels. Europe would be so diverse, we told ourselves, that it would be impossible to apply common policies to the whole continent. Powers would have to be returned to the national capitals.

How wrong we were. According to Mrs Grybauskaite, an expanded EU needs an expanded budget. She wants an extra trillion euros – an almost unbelievable sum – to fund her various projects. And the only way she can get it is if Britain increases its contribution.

Yes we supported enlargement because we thought that would lead to less EU, to less interference, to help create the EU the British always seem to dream of, a simple trading partnership. Of course this vision was seen off by the intergrationalist who ensured that they held their convention on the future of the EU before enlargement, when the candidate countries were not allowed to take part in the debate, but were already signed up to enter. Which exactly shows the naivety and incompetence of the British politician when they meet the professionals in the European arena; these are people who can see beyond the immediate horizon or the next sound bite.

The best argument we have got against removal of the rebate is that we have a veto and we do not agree so we will keep it thank you, we might also chuck in that without it we would pay 14 times more into the pot than either France or Italy and would be vying with Germany for first place.

However it looks as if Blair is not going to defend the rebate as posted Here

Which by a roundabout way brings me to this quote from a comment on EU Referendum by
Denis Cooper: “As far as the EU is concerned the British rebate is an exception to the rule, and like all such exceptions it will be attacked again and again until it’s eliminated. This is why it’s a mistake to suppose that we can escape any provision in the main body of the EU Constitution by adding a protocol to the Treaty. Yes, the protocol will be legally binding, but only until one British government or another is bullied or persuaded into giving it up. So if you don’t want the euro, you can’t rely on protocol 13 for a permanent exemption from Article I-8 -which states inter alia “The currency of the Union shall be the euro”.